Huge News!

The Day That Changed Everything

Don’t worry, you’ll get your regularly scheduled Monday morning email a little later today. But first, an announcement.

I have HUGE news!

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

No, my wife and I aren’t having another kid. Why does everyone always jump to that? If there were another baby, I assure you that you wouldn’t be getting an email at all because Lola would have murdered me.

The actual news is that I’m upgrading everything about how I work and do business in order to prioritize YOU. I joined Substack, and there’s a whole mountain of new content coming your way.

Before I get into the nitty-gritty of how things will change for the better for all of us, let me hit the highlights.

The Monday morning email will arrive as it always has, free to all and reliable as ever. Fun fact: The national atomic clock actually checks itself against my newsletter. It’s punctual down to the nanosecond. (Except for today, I suppose, when I delayed the newsletter by a bit to send out this special announcement first. My favorite person to contradict is me.)

There will now also be a bonus, SECOND email every Thursday morning for paid subscribers. It will be just as good as the Monday email, but maybe a little wilder since the self-selecting audience will be people who like me and are less likely to chase me down with torches and pitchforks (though I’ll keep my running shoes handy just in case). This will be a place for me to take risks and share the full truth about what’s really going on behind the scenes.

Paid subscribers will also get all of these features:

• Full access to the archives of every newsletter going back to the dawn of time. (Okay,  more like 2018 when I wrote the very first one, but I think we can all agree that’s when time started getting good).

• Weekly discussion threads where we swap parenting/life/disaster stories and share funny/world-changing advice about how to be more/less like us.

• Weekly video and audio messages. Sometimes, they’ll just be my funny musings about life, while other times, they’ll be direct answers to your questions. I’ll even record audio files of me reading the articles to you for people who don’t have time to read them themselves but might be able to listen to them while simultaneously doing nineteen other things. Multitasking is a curse.

• Weekly exclusive webcomics. These will be in addition to my regular daily webcomics, which will forever remain free to all.

• Early access to new books, events, and projects. Any time I come up with anything, you’ll be the first to know.

• Dedicated, professional tech support. No more missing emails. Now there’s a team to solve every problem and get back to you almost right away. That gives you quicker resolutions and gives me more time to produce new stuff.

So why the new direction?

Under my old business model, I’d spend several months at a time cloistered away writing a book that wouldn’t see the light of day for a year or longer. Sure, I tweeted and shared pictures and wrote newsletters, but those were actually a distraction from the one and only part of my writing career that actually paid money. Now, interacting with you and providing you with regular weekly content will be what generates my income. I still hope to write books, but they won’t be my main focus. Staying engaged with you will be. All of my priorities will change for the better.

Those of you who want to stay as free subscribers won’t lose a single word of content that’s free right now. You’ll still get my Monday newsletter and all of my regular posts on every social media outlet known to man—and some known only to man’s best friend. I’m still waiting for my invite to Dog Twitter. All the features I listed above will be extra content in addition to all the usual stuff I’ll continue to produce. Your support makes all of these extras possible. We’re in this together. I couldn’t have asked for better co-conspirators.

I’m especially excited about making the full archives of my old newsletters available for the first time. It includes more than 210 newsletters spanning approximately 420,000 words. That’s substantially longer than all of my books combined, but who’s counting? I barely had any subscribers when I sent out the earliest newsletters, so only a select few have seen them. Beyond that, at least two thirds of you missed out on the weeks of careful scheming that went into the wedding bear’s big reveal. It’s going to be awesome to finally let even more people in on that incredible tale, which is, without question, the greatest thing I’ve accomplished in my life. (Yes, having kids was good, too, but not WEDDING BEAR good.)

I’m extremely excited about this new direction and am looking forward to connecting with everyone who joins me on this journey. And remember, expect your regularly scheduled, completely-free Monday morning newsletter a little later today.

See you on the road ahead.

James